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The stats for this Neolithic monument are astounding: 200m across, once a great circle of earthen banks and deep ditches. Today, almost lost: 5,000 years of plough and neglect have flattened the banks and filled the ditches, and Cana Henge is now nothing but a smoothly undulating grassy field on the moor overlooking Ripon.
But notwithstanding the above, todays mission was to see if the new Infrared camera, so successful in extracting lost archaeology elsewhere, could see the henge and the round barrow (burial mound) next to it.
The site was open, exposed cold: melted snow made our boots soaked, freezing and uncomfortable and, despite the team, the car, the batteries and the drone all protesting loudly that the weather was unsuitable, the images were collected and, with the aid of the Hunt-Hickie GVC algorithm, processed on return to base.
And what images they are: here they are presented as a composite, as each field needed processing with slightly different settings. So, we will leave you to gasp as - we did - as the lost archaeology emerged from the greyscale images
Here is a summary of what we can see:
(1) The henge: magnificent once more, the ditches and banks showing up well, 200m (600ft) across with the causwayed entranceway, a bridge across the now vanished ditches, to the south west.
(2) The burial mound showing as a white area: indicating that the plough spread still affects the plant growth where the mound once stood, this surrounded by snake like convolutions of ditches and enclosures: are these archaeology?
(3) To the west another great circle seems to appear: double ditched, is this an earlier henge unrecorded until today?
(4) To the north a series of enclosures can be seen: possibly concurrent with the henge, possibly later. Next to that, to the North west yet another circle, again huge in scale but simpler in structure.
(5) To the south west a square: possibly a square barrow? Bu if it is, what is that doing this far north: these are typically East Yorkshire features.
(6) Just to the south of this a huge double ditched rectangular structure, apparently several of them.
(7) Another 2 circles, arcing across the landscape, possibly a ring ditch adjacent? (8)
A busy landscape indeed. All surrounding and possibly giving context to the great henge.
Above Text and images suppied with thanks by https://www.yaamapping.co.uk/cana-barn-henge.html
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